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In early April, Baird said it recruited a team of seven employee advisors with about $770 million in client assets from Wells Fargo in Houston, while Royal Alliance announced that it added two independent teams in Chicago and Salt Lake City with combined assets of more than $400 million and...

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In early April, Baird said it recruited a team of seven employee advisors with about $770 million in client assets from Wells Fargo in Houston, while Royal Alliance announced that it added two independent teams in Chicago and Salt Lake City with combined assets of more than $400 million and nearly $3.5 million in yearly fees and commissions.

In addition, Baird says it is opening a second branch in Houston that will be led by John S. Hantak, who just moved to Baird from UBS. He will supervise the new Baird team, which includes legacy A.G. Edwards & Sons advisors, which—through acquisitions—became part of Wachovia and later part of Wells. The group’s business model is mainly focused on retirement planning for employees and executives in oil and gas industry.

“We couldn’t be more pleased to welcome John and these highly regarded financial advisors to Baird,” said Michael J. Schroeder, president of Baird Private Wealth Management, in a statement. “Baird’s culture celebrates their entrepreneurial accomplishments and highly specialized expertise in the area of retirement planning for oil and gas industry professionals.”

Baird has more than 700 advisors as of early 2013, the company says. Since early 2009, it has added about 275 advisors and branch managers, including new offices in Fort Worth, Texas; Charlotte, N.C.; Sarasota, Fla.; Portland, Maine; Salt Lake City; and Portland, Ore.

Royal Recruits

Royal Alliance Associates, part of the AIG-owned Advisor Group of independent broker-dealers says that its two new teams moved to affiliate with Royal’s hybrid platform because of the “flexibility and cutting-edge technology” it offers fee-based advisors.

The two new independent teams are JLTD, based in Chicago and led by advisors Timothy McGrath and Horace Seely-Brown; and the Integrated Financial Group of Salt Lake City, which includes advisors Sam Clark, James Davenport, Les Barber, Steve Fulmer and Casey Kotter.

“We are continuing our fourth-quarter 2012 momentum in early 2013,” said Kevin Beard, senior vice president of recruiting, in an interview. “We are being more engaged by advisors, who are seeking a long term partner in the broker-dealer space.”

Year to date, Royal Alliance has added affiliated advisors with about $6 million in yearly fees and commissions, he notes.

Morgan Stanley

Less than a week after sharing the news that it had nabbed four advisors from rivals with about $3.7 million in yearly fees and commissions and more than $425 million in client assets under management., Morgan Stanley said in early April that it just successfully recruited nine more advisors with about $9.2 million in annual production and over $765 million in client assets from Merrill Lynch, Wells Fargo and JPMorgan.

Plus, the firm says it recruited 10 FAs from UBS since March 1 with about $7.8 million in production and some $660 million in client assets. The ex-UBS reps include several teams and individuals with over $1 million in trailing-12-month fees and commissions.

One team joining from Bank of America-Merrill includes Gaston Abello and Felix Jaimovich. They are based in Aventura, Fla. It has total production of $2.1 million and prior assets of $165 million. Also moving to Morgan Stanley from Merrill are Robert Iocco and Francis Ciocari of Blue Bell, Penn. Their combined fees and commissions are $1.6 million, while their prior assets are over $200 million.

William Seabrook and Kathleen Chiappone joined Morgan Stanley in Orlando from Wells Fargo. Its combined production is roughly $1.8 million.

Coming over from JPMorgan in Philadelphia are Paul D. Emrick, Troy Hottenstein and Scott Holland. The team’s total yearly fees and commissions are $3.7 million, and its prior assets are $400 million.

In the fourth quarter, Morgan Stanley said it had 16,780 advisors, down 29 reps from the prior quarter and off 4% from last year’s tally of 17,512. Average annualized revenue per rep, though, was $824,000, an improvement of 4% from the prior quarter and 13% from last year.

“Morgan Stanley may have its technology challenges, but the fact is that it has a broad-based platform of fee-based services and a pretty hefty recruiting war chest,” said Mark Elzweig, head of the executive-search consulting group Mark Elzweig Company in New York, in an interview. “Also, advisors who like the wirehouse model have only one of four firms from which to choose. Depending upon where they’ve worked before, the actual number of choices is even fewer” still.

Janet Levaux

Janet Levaux, MA/MBA, is Editor in Chief of "Investment Advisor" magazine; she has covered the financial markets since 1991 and advisors since 2005.

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